


they say there's a heaven for those who will wait

by liminal



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, F/M, Memories, i'm sorry this made me sad and i wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 06:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liminal/pseuds/liminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1977. Mary Crawley remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they say there's a heaven for those who will wait

**Author's Note:**

> The accompanying and quoted song is Billy Joel's 'Only the Good Die Young'. It's fab so listen to it if you haven't already.
> 
> (Teddy here is used as a nickname for Edward, not Theodore)

The grandfather clock near the far wall tells Mary it’s six o'clock in the evening and almost on cue, Cat bounds into the library and drops down onto the sofa next to her grandmother, dressed to the nines. She’s as blonde as her grandmother is dark (the chestnut brown still stubbornly overpowers the grey strands and for that, Mary is grateful) but her cheerful demeanour likens her far more to her great-aunt Sybil. Her sharp mind and sharper tongue, though, could only have come from one person.

“Does your father know you’re wearing that,” Mary asks quietly, but there's a twinkle in her eyes that negates any sternness. In truth, the flared trousers and silk blouse are overwhelmingly reminiscent of a moment from so many lifetimes ago, in a room just across the hallway when darling, precocious Sybil had kept them waiting for dinner so she could show off her new outfit.

Lady Catherine Crawley grins conspiratorially and adjusts her necktie. “No, and you mustn’t tell him, but everyone’s wearing this and it's not far off what Margaux Hemingway wore in that _Vogue_ spread. And if it's in _Vogue_ then Daddy has to be okay with it. Anyway, I’ve no time to change. James is picking me up and we’re running down to London, to Annabel’s or maybe Billy’s. Although, we might skip those because it’s no fun when someone important drops into Annabel’s and you’ve got to be on your best behaviour, and people only like Billy’s because everyone else says they do.” 

Cat’s voice, husky from the cold that she’s yet to recover from, flickers between enthusiasm and disdain. She babbles away happily, flushing gently when she mentions James, and Mary smiles softly, wondering if an announcement may need to be made in the Times tomorrow. It’s reassuring that, despite everything, there’s still a Napier interested in a Crawley; reassuring that the world, after total wars and bombs and riots, is not completely changed from what it was in 1912. 

The continuity, though, makes Mary feel a little ancient, a little out of sync. Her memories have become dinnertime fables, her world a page in a fairy-tale. Transcendence, as far as any mortal can attain it, is both a blessing and a curse.

-

Mary’s thoughts, as they so often do these days, consume her. This is a new-fangled world in which girls wear plastic boots and boys jam pins through their ears, where football is no longer a game for the working class and, of all things, _undertakers_ are striking. It's a world in which Mary has no part to play. The turn of the century seems a lifetime ago.

A sudden movement startles her. In a bound, Cat’s across the room, fiddling with the arm of the record player and searching for the right record. Discordant scratches irritate Mary's ears until the loud notes issue forth and the song begins. 

Cat whirls around with bright eyes and her long blonde hair trails behind her. “I love this song,” she says with a grin, but there’s a sharp rap on the front door and after a kiss on her grandmother’s cheek and a plea not to be exposed, she’s at the door before the butler can get there and off down the drive. 

The record plays on.

_Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray._  
_They built you a temple and locked you away._  
_Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay,_  
_For things that you might have done._

Mary usually tries to drown out the modern music played in the house, but Cat’s tastes are more conservative than her brothers', and this song is almost tuneful. Eyes closed, Mary's foot bobs along to the beat and the allusions to virginity make her frown, but 1977 fades briefly into 1912 and the dead Turk resurrects himself, as he is wont to do in her less guarded moments.

With the darkness momentarily perfumed with a strange Oriental scent, she’s vaguely aware that the door opens, that the butler (who isn’t Carson) asks her if she would like a drink, that he waits for a response before backing out. In the darkness, this strange new world doesn’t really exist, and Mary’s world rises from the ashes to torment her. She stands in this very room, all in red (a scarlet woman) with a red feather in her hair, enchanting two men and trying to forget about the third, who watches her keenly from the sidelines. A dark man with a lusty voice forces her into a dark corner and it’s just the two of them. It’s not her first kiss, but it’s the first one that stirs something inside (and balls her hands into fists). She’s upstairs, her hair flowing over her shoulder like running water and her nightdress is no barrier, but he’s not listening. Time and choice have all but erased the rest of that evening from her memory.

The sound of footsteps on wooden floorboards forces her eyes open.

“Mother, are you alright,” George’s voice gives way to tenderness, as it has learned to do. Mary hates ‘mother’ but doesn’t press it. It’s too deeply ingrained in George’s psyche, but it prompts memories of dark times, of arguments and frosty silences and words both wish had never been said or heard. “Where’s Cat? Did she leave that playing?”

Mary weighs her options quickly. “I believe she’s gone with Genevieve. I don’t mind the song, actually.” The lie is silky smooth and virtually undetectable; it was only ever Matthew who could tell the difference between a drawled sentence and a wilful falsehood. 

It’s not that George dislikes James, per se. He's known him for long enough for any serious doubts to have been assuaged, but Cat to him is what Sybil was to her father. The youngest and the one who shines the brightest, the one you cannot say ‘no’ to and yet the one you want to protect the most. That she is George’s only daughter doesn’t help matters, though Harry and Alastair are almost as overbearing where their sister is concerned. In George's eyes, no one, not even Alastair’s closest childhood friend, is good enough for Cat. Mary rather suspects that her granddaughter’s ‘damn them all’ attitude will prevail.

The dilemma is evident in George’s eyes, but eventually he sighs and it’s a relief that there won’t be a blazing row whenever Cat returns. He looks tired, though Mary supposes that he hasn't looked like her little boy for some time. There’s a world-weariness about him that comes not just from forcing himself to excel in war, but also from years of loss and heartache. Mary has begun to think of it as the 'Crawley Look'.

_Only the good die young._  
_That’s what I said,_  
_Only the good die young,_  
_Only the good die young_

“It’s Sybbie’s birthday today,” Mary says suddenly and then wishes she hadn’t said anything at all. Such bright eyes, such a laugh and a wicked smile. The whole world her oyster, and look how it turned out. Any residual softness in George’s face is gone when he snaps his head to look at his mother.

“I know,” he says harshly, glaring daggers and looking like the killer he was trained to be. An oppressive silence settles between them. 

Mary knows it’s unfair (time, like wine, loosens inhibitions), but she can’t help but remember that she told the darling girl her tongue would get her into trouble one day. _Straight from the horse’s mouth_ , Tom had said, but Mary, with the wisdom of her experience, had tried to make Sybbie listen. But like her aunt before her, she wouldn't and didn't. The Resistance had been grateful for her help, had said there was nothing they didn't try to do when Vichy France got their hands on her. 

The tombstone in the village graveyard is an honorary one. The War Office promised that she would be sent home, but the wooden box six feet under contains only photographs and her medals.

Dr. Mosse wasn’t surprised that Tom's heart gave out, not after all that. Mary wasn’t either, because a broken heart might as well be a broken neck for all the good it does. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” George snaps and as he marches out of the room, his posture is so stiff, it’s a wonder he can walk. Silly of her to mention it; smart mouths always got Crawleys into trouble.

Ted had been the first of that war. Her darling Teddy, who had been as dark as George was fair, the golden boy’s constant shadow. All he’d ever wanted was to follow George: to the village, to school, to war, but instead he’d followed Gort to Dunkirk and paid the price for his obedience. Mary suffered, still suffers, but Henry was worse. Ted was his son, his boy, but George was the one who survived to come home a hero, and it didn't take much for Henry's fast lifestyle to catch up with him. Two husbands lost in two car crashes; and the younger generations in the village wonder why she hates driving. 

_They say there's a heaven for those who will wait,_  
_Some say it's better, but I say it ain't._  
_I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints,_  
_The sinners are much more fun._

Mary is as familiar with the old adage about wickedness as anyone, but it’s 1977 and she wonders just how wicked she must have been to still be here. Granny, Mama, Isobel had it easy, she thinks bitterly, being taken by old age. And that left her, Papa, and Edith - none of them saints - to hold silent vigils for their dearly departed, until Death’s shadowy figure picked them off. All except her...

“Henry Matthew Crawley, down here! Now!” George doesn’t need to bellow to be obeyed, but the extra volume is useful when jostling for position with the Sex Pistols and ‘God Save the Queen’. Harry- like George, like _Matthew_ \- stomps downstairs and the row ensues.

Mary knows why she’s still here, because she quite simply doesn’t compare to him. She’d always known it, always known that she had fallen while he remained on high. He was, she thinks, entirely too good for her, and so she does her penance in this God-forsaken house. She remembers describing herself to him as Tess of the D'Urbevilles, but to call him Angel was an injustice. Matthew hadn’t turned away when she revealed the truth about Pamuk; he had loved her and held her and promised the world.

And the world had betrayed him.

The roars of the argument have lessened to the whispers of bitter retorts.

Dimly, Mary makes out a blond head through teary eyes and she smiles as broadly as her wrinkled skin will allow. 

“How are you,” she hears, though the voice is tinny and echoes in her head.

“I’m fine, darling. We'll be together soon.”

_I'm telling you baby,_  
_You know that only the good die young._  
_Only the good die young._  
_Only the good,_  
_Only the good die young._


End file.
